In This Guide...

When I was getting ready to move to Rochester five years
ago, my friends and family were confused. They wore worried faces when they
asked me, "What's in Rochester?" and "That's not too far from the city, is it?"
and "Do you like the cold weather?"

Welcome to the
Rochester food scene. I write full reviews of different restaurants every other
week in City, but here is a bit of a
primer, by genre, to acquaint you with the area's amazing variety of dining
options.

The Rochester
Public Market can be noisy, crowded, and fishy, but that is part of the vibrancy
and spirit that make it a unique experience. Where else in Rochester is it
almost too crowded to move for hours at a time?

Each
public school district in Monroe County has contact information (listed below)
where you can get more detailed information about individual schools. To get an
overall picture, for some general research, or to just get involved, here are
some resources:

Although
Rochester has a number of respectable art museums and galleries, rarely will
these venues show anything outside the mainstream. For an art space to do
something daring, quite often it has to rely on the vision and resources of an
individual or a small group of people.

I'm only about 5-foot-3-inches, but I
totally towered over Isabella Rossellini. Now, you may be wondering what sorts
of circles a humble hometown girl like myself would run in that would enable me
to reach that conclusion.

The areas in and around Rochester are
rich with green space --- diverse, convenient, and beautiful places to walk the
dog, take out a canoe, find a zoo, or smell the lilacs. From the beautiful
Seneca and Highland Parks, both designed by 19th-century landscape genius
Frederick Law Olmsted, to Durand-Eastman Park, where you can feel the immensity
of that Great Lake --- here is just a partial list of some of our favorite
parks in the Monroe County (256-4950, www.monroecounty.gov) and City of
Rochester (400 Dewey Avenue, 428-6767 or 428-6755, www.cityofrochester.gov)
systems.